Wealthy new mothers in Shanghai will soon be able to sing away the postnatal blues at a luxury hospital that boasts a karaoke room, a golf course, a swimming pool and tennis courts, the state-run media reported today.

Dubbed China's first "five-star medical institution", the Xiyue Postnatal Hospital will open on Christmas Day and despite room charges of up to £660 per night, half the beds are already booked, according to the Xinhua news agency.

It is the latest sign of the healthcare inequality that has opened up as the nominally communist country embraces market economics. Mothers who give birth in the commercial capital of Shanghai are 40 times less likely to die than those in impoverished Tibet.

Xiyue Postnatal offers four-week stays. According to the Shanghai Daily, this is a throwback to the Chinese tradition for mothers and their babies to spend a month in confinement after birth - a period when they are supposedly vulnerable to evil spirits. For the privilege of a holiday-resort atmosphere and state of the art medical equipment, the minimum monthly charge is 40,000 yuan (£2,600) - more than 14 times the average monthly salary in Shanghai.

The most luxurious two-storey suites, which have their own karaoke bars and accommodation for a nanny, are available for 10,000 yuan per day - equivalent to more than half a year's income for the average Chinese farmer.

Because raucous singing and vigorous exercise are not usually the first things on a mother's mind after giving birth, the entertainment and sport are primarily aimed at visitors.

The hospital is reportedly expecting strong business in 2007, which is the year of the pig in the Chinese zodiac - an auspicious time to have a baby.

Economics, however, is likely to have a bigger impact. A near 10% growth rate for each of the past 25 years has swollen the ranks of the urban middle class and produced a growing band of millionaires.

Sales of luxury goods, such as Bentley cars, Cartier watches and Prada handbags, are booming. More and more families are employing maids, nannies, cooks and drivers. Reminiscent of the pre-communist age, newspapers often contain stories about the concubines kept by corrupt officials and the wet-nurses employed by wealthy mothers.

Concerns about inequality are growing. According to the United Nations 2005 Human Development Report, China's Gini coefficient - a measurement of income disparity - has passed the internationally recognised danger level of 0.4, well above the average of 0.32 in Europe or 0.25 in Japan. The gap in access to healthcare is likely to be even greater. In the 1970s, 90% of China's villages were covered by cooperative medical systems. By the early 90s, this fell below 5%. In the same period, the country's health expenditures rose more than 30-fold, but it was individuals who had to pick up most of the extra cost because the government's share of spending as a percentage of gross national product declined from 1.1% per cent to 0.8%.

A new medical insurance system in being introduced, but for hundreds of millions of poor farmers all but the most rudimentary care is unaffordable.